Biography

Italian painter. He claimed to have trained with Titian in Venice, but his first known works, the scenes from the Lives of Sts Paul and Barnabas (1573; Milan, San Barnaba), were painted in Milan, where he was established by 1575; these works indicate closer contacts with Jacopo Tintoretto, Brescian Renaissance artists, particularly Moretto, and Milanese Mannerist painters.

Between 1578 and 1582 he painted frescoes and altarpieces for the charterhouse of Garegnano, near Milan, and in these established his mature style, which developed very little. He united elements of Antonio Campi's naturalism with Mannerist formulas partly influenced by Giovanni Demio (at Garegnano most marked in the angels he depicted on the dome), and thus achieved a lively narrative style, as in the Adoration of the Shepherds and the Adoration of the Magi. His Deposition (Milan, San Fedele) perhaps dates from 1583-84, but, although it is signed S Petrazanus Titiani Al[umnus] (i.e. pupil of Titian), it is closer to the work of Moretto. In 1584 Caravaggio entered his workshop on a four-year contract. The absence of any works or documents between 19 Feb 1585 and 26 Sept 1589 has led scholars to suggest a long stay in Rome.